| Everyone remember the Reform Michigan Government Now ballot question from 2008? That was the one Mark Brewer tried to run that would have, at the same time, reduced the size of the state Supreme Court (rather than making Brewer win elections), eased term limits, and mandated that every local government offer free cookies and fruit punch at their meetings? Everyone remember how it was blocked from the ballot because it sought to do too many things at once, prompting the justices who voted to keep it off the ballot to say that if Mark Brewer wanted to rewrite the constitution he ought to call for a constitutional convention? I sure do. MLive's in-house seditionist Matt Davis says Bill Schuette sees the same thing at work when he wrote that just because you amend something doesn't mean you rewrite it (that's actually exactly what it means, but that's beside the point). Okay, just for clarification ... Bill Schuette called the Protect Our Jobs ballot question unconstitutional, even though it seeks to change the constitution. To back this up, he cites a question that was kept off the ballot -- not because it was unconstitutional (again, every ballot question seeking to change the constitution first starts with a proposition that is, by defition, unconstitutional) -- but because it went beyond the scope of a ballot question by seeking to do about 11 mostly unrelated things all at once. Keep in mind that 2008 was the same year that Schuette led the campaign against medical marijuana on the grounds that it would lead to the proliferation of "California-style" pot dispensaries all over the state, and after it passed with two-thirds support anyway, wrote an attorney general's opinion that the voters never foresaw the ballot question leading to the opening of California-style pot dispensaries and then got that codified as a court ruling. In other words, he skipped the Legislature and nullified a voter-approved ballot measure all on his own. |
